This morning Mom and Grandma took me to a Professional Photographer for some Christmas Pictures. I guess they wanted something better than Grandpa’s pictures. So we spent our morning at the photo studio. If I could talk, I would have explained to them that we already missed Christmas. But you all know how that would have gone… Moms and Grandmas all always right.

They took a lot of pictures. I posted a few of my favorites here. BTW, as I mentioned, these are not our pictures. They were taken at “Portrait Innovations” in Kingwood, TX. I just want to make sure credit goes to where credit is due.

This first photo is a typical toddler on Mom’s lap photo.

Next, they took one of my climbing on Mom. They actually took quite a few of me climbing on Mom’s back. Grandma said I wasn’t cooperating very well and they were having a very difficult time getting me to sit still.

This next picture was fun. I’m not allowed to touch the ornaments on the Christmas tree at home. Something about them being made of glass, me breaking them, and me possibly getting injured. However, at the photo studio they actually wanted me to touch them. It took them a long time to convince it was OK because I knew it wasn’t.

Then, still trying to get me to smile for a photo, they wanted me to play with a box. They even put a Lego in the box because I wasn’t going to mess around with an empty box; that would be just plain silly. The rattling noise was supposed to get my interest… and it worked for a while.

I was finally able to get the box open so I could look inside. The person taking the pictures said she had never seen someone actually stick their head in the box before. Well, if I didn’t get my head into the box, how would I be able to see what was in it. I knew there had to be more in there than just that one Lego.

In all, they probably took 40 pictures. These are just a few that I thought you all might get a kick out of…

Today was a great day. I feel much better. What ever was bothering my bottom cleared up. That Butt Paste stuff works like a miracle. But on to more pleasant things.

I had lunch today with Grandpa and Grandma. I had chicken but manage to eat one of Grandpa’s scrambled eggs. I love eggs. The chicken was interesting though. Today, Grandma dipped the chicken into this white stuff called Miracle Whip. So I spent a lot of time sucking the white stuff off of the chicken rather than actually eating the chicken.

Eating Chicken with Kraft Miracle Whip

I also had Nabisco Nilla Wafers. Grandma bought the mini kind. They were great. They are so easy to hold on to and get into my mouth. They have to be one of my favorite snack foods because if I forget to chew them up, they will just go ahead an melt in my melt. There’s is very little chance for me choking on them.

Enjoying a Nabisco Nilla Wafer

Speaking of talent… Now I don’t have nay idea how true this is (after all I am only 14 months old) but my Grandparents seem to think that it is highly unusual for someone my age to be able to snap my fingers. As you can see in this next photo….

Snapping my fingers

And I actually make noise when I do it. So I’m not jst going through the motions, I’m making a real clicking sound with my fingers. I’ve included a close-up of my star technique in this next photo….

Now snapping comes in very handy when you can’t talk yet. You see, I snap my finger and then point to what I want. Grandpa thinks it’s pretty funny. However, there are some that find it a bit annoying. I can’t even imagine why?

I also wanted to include a picture of the cool Harley baseball cap my Grandpa got me for Christmas. I just about fits me and I can put it on….. and take it off.

Look how sharp I look. All I need now is a motorcycle, and I’ll be right in business.

Speaking of sharp, I had to include a photo Grandpa took of me at lunch. Aren’t I just the cutest 14 month old toddler you have ever seen?

I’m just so darn cute, or at least everyone keeps telling me that, that I had to include just one more “smile” photo.

Today has been a strange day. It has had some great highs and some really bad lows…

The highs.. Grandpa goes to breakfast quite a bit at a little place in Huffman, TX called the Star Cafe ( 21522 FM 2100 Road) with his Haley friends that has the BEST pancakes in the world… or so he claims. Well, this morning, he took me with him (sans motorcycle) and was correct. Their pancakes are the size of a dinner plate, really thick, and really fluffy. They tasted wonderful. I ate almost half of mine. I also has half a biscuit with jam on it. I surprised Grandpa with the jam part by getting it all over the back of his arm without him realizing it. So when he put on his Harley jacket, he got the jam all over the inside of sleeve. Pretty funny, huh… Some of his friends joined us for our early morning breakfast. It was lots of fun. All of the waitresses made a big fuss over me (of course) and I flirted with a few of the girls that were a little closer to my age that were having breakfast with their families. All in all, it was a great time. I can’t wait to ride over on Grandpa’s bike when the whole biker group goes for breakfast.

Now for the low part of the day.. I have diaper rash and boy does it hurt. Mom puts something called Butt Paste (funny name) on it and that helps quite a bit. Mom and Grandma are trying to figure out what may have caused it. I did just finished taking an antibiotic (Zithromax) and I just started taking vitamins (Poly-Vi-Sol) mixed with a little orange juice. There is nothing they can do about the antibiotics, I’m done with those. And they started to mix my vitamins with apple juice instead of orange juice. Not sure we’ll ever figure what actually cause it though.

After a three hour nap, while Grandpa watched the football game on TV, Grandma and Grandpa took me with them to do the grocery shopping. The deli person give me a big old slide of chicken to pick on while we were shopping. It was great. And of course, I always like going for rides in the truck.

When we arrived home from shopping, Grandpa ran the train around the Christmas tree for a while. I like to watch it go round. I’m pretty sure I like it although it still sometimes makes me a little nervous, especially when I’m a little tired. So far I have only knocked it off the track twice, both times were completely accidents and completely out of my control… (smile)…

Anthony watch our Christmas train go around the tree.

Well, it’s almost time for dinner.. more chicken… roasted this time, not lunch meat.

Lunch can be an interesting experience for me. I usually have lunch just after waking up from my morning nap.. not the best time to stick me in a high chair. I have so many things I need to do just after waking up, especially when I am well rested. I usually like to run around for a while then have lunch.

However, today we went straight from nap to high chair. we started out with a hard boiled egg… I love eggs, especially hard boiled. When they are hard boiled, Mom gives me the entire egg (less the yellow stuff in the middle) so I can just take my time eating it…… and I can get most of it in my mouth now with no help form anyone else. It also helps with my hand eye coordination along with allowing me to learn how much I can and should stuff in my mouth at one time. Grandpa says I do pretty well not trying to put everything in my mouth at once and choking myself.

I also like to eat mashed potatoes. Mom mixes them with a little apple sauce so I get a little fruit at lunch also. Normallay, I’m not real big on eating applesauce or any other kind of fruit. I guess it’s a learned taste.

Mom will give my one of my spoons to play with while she feeds me. It minimizes me trying to pull the spoon she is using out of her hand and getting food all over. I haven’t quite mastered feeding myself yet. I find it far more entertaining to put the bowl of food on my head or dump it out on my tray. Making a mess can be a lot of fun at meal time. Sometimes, we have “so much fun” I go straight from my highchair to the bath tub. Today was not one of those occasions. I managed to keep most of the food in me and not all over me.

After a quick diaper change, Mom took me for a walk around the block. It’s still pretty warm here in Houston so we can go for walks without having to get me all dressed up. Today’s walk ended a but differently though. We had it rain on us. We were almost home when it started to really rain. This is the first time I have been caught in the rain in my stroller. I was kind of fun. I kept leaning forward trying to catch the raindrops on my tongue. If had just sat there, I probably would have stayed pretty try. However, because I was trying to catch the rain, I did get pretty wet.

One very wet toddler

Mom just put one of my favorite DVDs on. It’s “Choo-Ch00 Soul” on Walt Disney Records. It’s a DVD of all train songs. They play these songs all the time on the Disney Channel between shows. They have a great beat that I can really get down and dance to.

Dancing to the Choo-Choo Soul DVDV

(It’s hard to tell, but I’m dancing up a storm in the above photo.)

Well, time to bring this entry to a close. Grandpa is working in his office so I’m going to head over there and bang on his guitars for a while.

Boy did I sleep well last night. Of course, I was still up at 6:00 AM this morning. Fortunately, Grandma woke a short time later and was ready to give me breakfast. I had orange juice with my breakfast this morning and I’m pretty sure Grandma slipped me something in it. (We give Anthony his liquid vitamins, now that he is off of formula completely, mixed with about 2 ounces of orange to hide the vitamin taste. He seems to really like orange juice so we hope this works out OK for a while.) Once breakfast was out of the way, Grandma gave me a much needed bath. I had sweet potatoes (or maybe yams) for the first time last night. They’re back in a sweet caramel sauce.. great stuff… except for the fact I still eat most things with my hands and immediately stick my hands in my hair… sweet potatoes turned out to quite messy.

After my bath it was time to wake up Grandpa.

I spent most of the day playing with Mom. Grandpa claims we shoudl get support from FEMA for the diaster left by Hurricane Anthony. I’m not sure what he was implying.

We didn’t mess around with tree or train today. I spent most of my time playing with stuff in the family room.

I did catch a 2.5 hour nap this afternoon. That was nice. I took my nap right after Mom took me for my afternoon walk… she walks, I get to rid in the stroller. This arrangement worked out well today because half way through our walk, it started to rain. I was fine because the stroller covers me. Mom got soaked.

Well, need to start planning what I want for dinner. If I get some new pitctures later, I’ll post them

It’s Christmas morning, well for a few more minutes anyway. I’ve been up since 6:30 AM this morning. Not so much because of Christmas but that’s the time I get up every morning.

This is my first Christmas that I am able to participate in. Last year I was only 2 months old and really had no idea the day even went by. This year, I’m a whopping 14 months old. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a clue what’s going on. I know this is a special day, definitely different from a regular Thursday, but I’m still trying to figure everything out. There’s a lot more music being played today and it’s definitely not the usual jazz, rock, and country that Grandpa usually plays. And who is this Santa guy?

First, we have a tree with lights IN THE HOUSE. How odd is that. When I try to bring a just a branch from a tree into the house everyone gets all upset. But when Grandma does it, it’s OK… go figure… adults… (smile)

Next, the tree has lights (I know I said that already), lot’s of different toy looking things hanging from it, lot’s of boxes wrapped in very bright paper, and a train going round it. Everything a kid would love to explore. However, guess what happens when I go over to check things out. Yup, everyone gets all upset.

The strangest thing are the boxes. I’m told not to touch all morning. Then all of a sudden, they WANT me to tear the paper of the boxes. Now, this is great. Shredding paper can be a blast. In fact, once you get it off the box, you can tear it into even smaller pieces. The paper also taste great. But for some reason Grandma keeps taking the paper away form me if I put it in my mouth.

What’s really confusing about today is they give me all these boxes that I get to tear the paper off of.. but when I’m “finished” there are still more boxes in bright paper still under the tree. Now, when I try to help and take the paper off of those boxes, I get in trouble. Go figure!!!

Well, I need to take a break for a few minutes; my cousin Faith just arrived.

Faith, Colton, Aunt Lauren, and Uncle Ben just left. So were was I…

Santa brought me some very cool stuff. I know it came from Santa because Grandma said so.. Of course, I’m really not sure who this Santa guy is? I haven’t met him and don’t remember him ever visiting us. But if Grandma says it’s so, then it must be.

I received an Elmo that talks to me… In fact, I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it STOP talking to me… LOL

Sometimes, they just hand you this box and expect you to do something with it. It can all be so confusing. Maybe it will all make more sense when I’m a little older.

I’m told I should be getting excited. Unfortunately, I’m only one year old. For me, today is a lot like Wednesday. The biggest exception to that is I keep getting told I can’t touch stuff. Grandma put this big old tree with flashing lights and shiny bulbs on it in the middle of the room and I’m told “don’t touch”. I’ll tell you what, if you don’t want me to touch it, don’t make it so darn appealing. A big green things with flashing colored lights, now what would make someone think a toddler would touch that.. LOL

Mom and Grandma also but a big old white thing in the middle of the front year. I thought it was a mouse. I was told it’s a polar bear. Is there really that big of a difference between a polar bear and a mouse? I don’t thing so…

Here, I have included a photo of me, Mom, and the mouse/bear. You decide…

Sorry about not looking at the camera. I’m still trying to figure out this white things.

BTW, that’s a real (or pretty close to real) Yankee’s baseball jersey I wearing… you can’t see much of that either…